I played just 15 minutes or so, and my first impressions are off the chart positive. The combat looks quite deep and cerebral, and there look to be countless ways to customize your abilities and combat style. Oh, and of course the game really does just ooze style. The setting, characters, narration, art, and music are all fantastic so far.

My early impressions are that the game is beautiful and a joy to play. As much as I enjoyed Bastion I can see this surpassing it. The world is compelling, well developed and the combat system is deep and requires careful planning to fully utilize. On top of that, the level of flexibility in the combat engine is impressive. Each “skill” you have can be socketed with (up to two) of any other skill you have. This means you combine your “slash” with your “stealth” skill to make your back stabs do additional damage. Or combine “convert enemy” with “stealth” to make a skill that converts nearby enemies to your side whenever you go invisible.

All of this is great and yet I am compelled to hold off playing it right now because of numerous performance issues. I’ve already looked on the forums and it seems like a lot of people are having issues so it’s not limited to me.

The first thing I noticed was that the game doesn’t offer true support for my native monitor resolution (1920x1200). There are options for 16x10 monitors but they simply put black bars on the top and bottom of your screen. I wouldn’t consider this a deal breaker by any means but it is disappointing.

Every 5-10 minutes everything in the game freezes for 2-3 seconds and you have to wait for it to catch up. While annoying on its own, this has resulted in a couple close fights for me.

Finally, the worst problem I’m encountering is that anytime the game enters a cut scene I’m stuck with a black screen and audio only. If I cycle my windows with Alt-Tab I can occasionally get it to fix itself but I have to go this every time.

The developers have been very active on the forums and are responding to people almost instantly if they have problems , which gives me hope that they will push out a quick day 1-2 patch.

Playing on PS4. Love the game so far and I think the devs recommendation that you play through before listening to the soundtrack is good. The way the music is played isn't just one track per area like you would expect.

As for the gameplay, it's a great setup with how your powers are configured. Every time I get a new one, I try out the combinations and see what happens. I tried the load() with another and got a bomb, but against the bigger enemies, it's not as effective when they move around. The game has a real risk/reward in how you lose a random power when your health drains. I had a much tougher time after losing one in particular. It's going to be a bit of fun figuring out which powers work best and are good on the cost/damage scale.

Who keeps complaining that the PS4 needs games? I already have a freaking backlog. The Show, Child of Light, and now Transistor and Wolfenstein, since both are getting good reviews.

I seriously don't get it either. It's like people don't remember other launch windows...

Those are multiplatform games. People who complain about the lack of games are usually people who already have a powerful PC and have no reason to buy either console right now. As a predominantly PC gamer I see no reason to buy a PS4 now, or unless e3 amazes, anytime in the near future.

Who keeps complaining that the PS4 needs games? I already have a freaking backlog. The Show, Child of Light, and now Transistor and Wolfenstein, since both are getting good reviews.

I seriously don't get it either. It's like people don't remember other launch windows...

Those are multiplatform games. People who complain about the lack of games are usually people who already have a powerful PC and have no reason to buy either console right now. As a predominantly PC gamer I see no reason to buy a PS4 now, or unless e3 amazes, anytime in the near future.

That sentiment holds up regardless of which machine you own. If you own an XB1, why buy a PS4 or PC? If you own a PS4, why bother with a PC or XB1? I think it's a good problem to have... the fact that there's not much of a content delta between each platform.

Of course, that all goes out the window if your primary focus is F2P or obscure indie titles. Then you should probably stick to a low/mid spec PC.

Who keeps complaining that the PS4 needs games? I already have a freaking backlog. The Show, Child of Light, and now Transistor and Wolfenstein, since both are getting good reviews.

I seriously don't get it either. It's like people don't remember other launch windows...

Those are multiplatform games. People who complain about the lack of games are usually people who already have a powerful PC and have no reason to buy either console right now. As a predominantly PC gamer I see no reason to buy a PS4 now, or unless e3 amazes, anytime in the near future.

That sentiment holds up regardless of which machine you own. If you own an XB1, why buy a PS4 or PC? If you own a PS4, why bother with a PC or XB1? I think it's a good problem to have... the fact that there's not much of a content delta between each platform.

Of course, that all goes out the window if your primary focus is F2P or obscure indie titles. Then you should probably stick to a low/mid spec PC.

One console is roughly as good as the other but PC games offer better graphics, performance, customization and are cheaper 99% of the time. That said, I do miss the days of good console exclusives. It made things much more interesting and helped drive the industry.

What does the PS4 controller speaker do in this game? Ben Kuchera mentioned it was a great part of the experience, but I'm on the PC version so I don't know what I'm missing.

Also, don't overlook that you can use the bumper buttons to do a neat flourish or hum along to the music.

I turned it on last night (it is off by default) and it just has the voice of the sword come through the controller to match the flashing of the light bar. I think I'll leave it on the controller as I like the effect.

That sentiment holds up regardless of which machine you own. If you own an XB1, why buy a PS4 or PC? If you own a PS4, why bother with a PC or XB1? I think it's a good problem to have... the fact that there's not much of a content delta between each platform.

Of course, that all goes out the window if your primary focus is F2P or obscure indie titles. Then you should probably stick to a low/mid spec PC.

One console is roughly as good as the other but PC games offer better graphics, performance, customization and are cheaper 99% of the time. That said, I do miss the days of good console exclusives. It made things much more interesting and helped drive the industry.

That's assuming every PC owner has a PC that's powerful enough to output better graphics than a PS4 or XB1 version. I would look somewhere between the minimum and recommended specs of a Valve game, because they unquestionably have more user hardware data than any other game company, and assume that's the range most PC gamers exist in. Going off that, I would say that for most people the PS4 and XB1 offer comparable if not better graphics than what their PC can produce.

What does the PS4 controller speaker do in this game? Ben Kuchera mentioned it was a great part of the experience, but I'm on the PC version so I don't know what I'm missing.

Also, don't overlook that you can use the bumper buttons to do a neat flourish or hum along to the music.

I turned it on last night (it is off by default) and it just has the voice of the sword come through the controller to match the flashing of the light bar. I think I'll leave it on the controller as I like the effect.

Quote from: wonderpug on May 21, 2014, 06:04:54 PM

Wonder why that's off by default. Sounds like a neat feature.

The only reason I can think of is in case people turned the speaker volume down on the controller before playing the game. It's definitely a cooler way to play.

I've unlocked a few more powers and wonder, from anyone who's progressed further along, do you get more than 16mem? I'm assuming you do as it would be pretty much impossible to max out upgrades for all four abilities. I've got just about to the second named boss and unlocked Mask() and upgraded with Crash(), which combos greatly with the ranged attack. It does a big chunk of backstab damage

I've unlocked a few more powers and wonder, from anyone who's progressed further along, do you get more than 16mem? I'm assuming you do as it would be pretty much impossible to max out upgrades for all four abilities. I've got just about to the second named boss and unlocked Mask() and upgraded with Crash(), which combos greatly with the ranged attack. It does a big chunk of backstab damage

It seems you can choose a memory upgrade occasionally when you level up. I was given the option once to choose between a second passive slot or a +4 memory upgrade.